


Greed Comes From Need

by InkFlavored



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Nightmares, not sure if this counts as a character study but w/e, vex cares a lot, vex cares too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6781018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkFlavored/pseuds/InkFlavored
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Vex’ahlia isn’t offended when people call her greedy. In fact, she takes it as a compliment." // personal interpretation of vex's greed. hope you enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greed Comes From Need

Vex’ahlia isn’t offended when people call her greedy. In fact, she takes it as a compliment; she knows who she is, and has absolutely no qualms about it. If anything, she wonders why people think liking a lot of money in her coin purse is such a _bad_ thing. Money is important! Money gets you the luxuries of life! Never in history has there ever been a _poor_ king. She can buy potions with money, quality armor, good weapons, a room at an inn, Vox Machina built Grayskull Keep with money (not literally, of course, but the place sure was expensive)! Money has kept Vex and her friends alive on more than one encounter. Why should there be shame in wanting a lot of something that could save your life?

Vex could never quite wrap her head around that, and she wasn’t an idiot. It was comforting to have a jangling coin purse at her side, filled to the brim with gold pieces. Especially because she knew what it sounded like when it was empty. An empty coin purse sounded like hunger and cold and a slow, painful death.

Money was different when Vex was a child. Everything was different when she and her twin brother Vax’ildan lived in the poorest slums of the human town with their mother. A woman who worked three jobs to provide for her half-elf children, the twins’ poor mother didn’t have the heart to explain to them why they weren’t allowed to play with the other children, or why adults would glare at them from across the streets as they chased each other outside their mother’s ramshackle hovel somehow passing off as a house. So Vex spent the earlier years of her life not understanding why she was treated like a dangerous animal. But if there was one thing she understood, it was money, even if it was in the most basic sense.

When her mother came home and pulled a handful of copper coins out of her pocket, Vex knew what that meant. It meant her family would have food for two or three days. It meant she might get a new shirt in a few weeks. It meant that her mother would smile – she’d smile for real, with crinkled eyes, crooked teeth, and all, the kind of smile that made all of her tiredness disappear. In Vex’s childhood, money was scarce, which made it all the more valuable. A single silver coin meant the whole world and then some. Money meant survival. Money meant _happiness_.

She didn’t expect to be ripped away from her mother and her simple life in the human town, but that’s what happened. At ten years old, Vex and Vax were taken out of their simple home, escorted by three, tall elves with shining gold armor and hats almost as tall as Vex was. Their mother had been working when they’d been taken away. The elves didn’t let them try to find her or say goodbye. To this day, Vex wonders if her mother ever found out about what happened to them. She wonders if her mother expected it. She wonders if her mother let them be taken away, thinking they’d have a better life.

The elves took them to the city of Syngorn, where they met their father. At first Vex was excited – she’d seen the other children with their fathers, and she always wondered why she didn’t have one – but that excitement quickly faded when she realized how her father intended to treat Vex and her brother. She quickly grew to dislike him, as did Vax, and quickly grew to dislike _everyone else_ in Syngorn, for they all treated her the same as her father: cold, distant, ignoring her, dismissing her existence. She was irritated, to put it lightly, but it was in Syngorn when she learned what money could buy.

During the short periods of time that Vex was allowed to be seen with her father, she noticed he carried a large, bulging, expertly woven coin purse that constantly rang with the sweet song of clanking coins. Sometimes he’d reach into it and pull out more gold than Vex or Vax had ever seen (which was any amount). Vex would stare in awe as he dropped the coins into someone’s hand and was in turn given a package or parchment. Her father would scold her for staring, so she learned to stare when he wasn’t paying attention.

It was later in her life in the elven city that Vex realized money could buy more than scrolls or boxes. Money bought the (second) best tutors, fine clothes, food beyond her wildest dreams, and enough of it to feed ten of her. It bought huge houses and weapons training, it bought exquisite furniture and a _real_ bed instead of hay with a sheet throw on top, it bought knives for Vax and a bow for her, it bought baubles and other trifles that you buy because you can – because you have money. Despite being restrained and ignored in Syngorn, it was the city that Vex learned the most from, and not just from her lessons. She learned that living was more than just surviving. She learned that wealth _meant_ a life.

But after some time, it grew to be too much for Vex and her brother. Tired of being outcasts and the way their father treated them, the twins hatched a plan to leave as soon as they could. Weapons and rations strapped to their backs, they left at night, and the only thing Vex took to remember her dear father by was his coin purse.

Unfortunately, the purse didn’t last long. To each city the twins came across, a cold hand gripped Vex’s heart as she felt the purse get lighter and lighter. With every coin lost, she saw a little piece of a good life slip away from her. She taught herself how to bat her eyelashes and give sultry winks and coat her tongue with silver to lower the prices on the things she and Vax desperately needed – food, drink, a place to stay. She tried to make the gold last as long as she could, haggling until shopkeepers grew angry or refused to sell to her. But it didn’t last long enough.

Vex taught herself to hunt in the forests to feed herself and her brother. Vax taught himself to become one with the shadows, to cut purses as well as throats, to turn his fingers into fishing hooks and snatch what he could to provide for himself and his sister. It took a while before Vex could catch anything bigger than a rabbit. Vax didn’t get much – some copper, some silver, a gold here and there. There were several days where the twins went hungry, sleeping on forest floors instead of bed. On these nights, Vex could feel the twisting in her stomach as she clutched at her near-empty coin purse that rang sadly with the few coins her brother managed to snatch.

Vax always teased her about how she should be the one in the cities, stealing coins from unsuspecting pockets and placing them in her own. Vex always laughed along with him, but too many nights tormented her with dreams of her brother’s laughing face stretching over his bones, gaunt with hunger. His bright eyes becoming dim with despair and his head drooping with sleeplessness. His lean body slowly shrinking until he becomes little more than a walking skeleton. When she tries to look away, she sees Vax as a child, his ribs visible through his shirt, shivering from the cold. She reaches down for her coin purse only to find it empty, and watches her brother slowly die.

Vex promised herself that she would never again let Vax suffer like their childhood again, she would never let him go without food, drink, or a warm bed. But those things cost money. _Everything_ costs money. She needed money. For Vax.

Later, it was for Trinket, too. Her nightmares now included her precious bear companion going from mighty beast to shriveled, too skinny for a bear, his fur falling off in clumps, moaning sadly as he curled in on himself, shaking and suffering. Vex would reach for her coin purse, and once again find it empty.

Her haggling improved, and she got even more shaved off of prices. For Trinket. For Vax.

For Keyleth. For Grog. For Scanlan. For Tiberius. For Percy. For Pike.

Eventually, money was easier to come by. She didn’t need to hunt for nine people – they bought food. All of Vox Machina had their own bed at Grayskull Keep. They all bought fine armor and weaponry, and Vex had become an expert at haggling – so much of an expert that it was a running joke. It’s the easiest life she’s had since Syngorn.

But sometimes, when someone in the party spends a hefty amount or when their party funds get particularly low, Vex has restless sleep and horrible dreams about skeletal bodies, shivering in the cold, lying in the dirt clutching at their stomachs. The bodies of Keyleth, Grog, Scanlan, Tiberius, Percy, Pike...

Trinket.

Vax’ildan.

And then Vex gasps awake, tears streaming down her face, and lunges for her coin purse across her room, breathing a sigh of relief when she hears the jingle of coins.

Vex’ahlia decided long ago that she is perfectly alright with being greedy.

 


End file.
